Editorial: Time to speak up for India

• The much-touted friendship between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi has acquired the character of coercive bullying. On two occasions last week, the American President set aside diplomatic practice to disclose a decision that the Indian Prime Minister himself is loath to admitting publicly.

Speaking to reporters while meeting the new ambassador-designate to New Delhi Sergio Gor in the White House, Trump claimed that India has decided to stop buying Russian oil. No such decision has been divulged by the BJP-led Union government, however. To compound the embarrassment for Modi, the President said the decision was conveyed to him by the Prime Minister himself. Two days later, he doubled down on it during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “India… have already de-escalated and they’ve more or less stopped.”

Trump’s disregard for facts is legendary, and there are inaccuracies in his remarks. No personal chat between the two leaders took place on the said date, for instance. However, India has indeed cut back on purchases of Russian oil in the past three months—without declaring it as policy, or as an imperative under US pressure. Trade data show a notable decline, by up to 45%, between July and September 2025. Intake by India’s public-owned refineries is reported to have dropped nearly 38 per cent, compensated by higher volumes from the Gulf. Confirming Trump’s claims, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said, “I can already see them (India) starting to diversify. I think they get it.”

The optics of this are not good for Modi’s image, nor to India’s standing as a country with an independent worldview. While the pullback on Russian oil purchases could well be due to the narrowing of discounts offered by Moscow, Trump’s claims make it seem like New Delhi has caved in to his coercive diplomacy. Although the US President qualified his remarks with his usual ‘my friend Modi’ trope, the Prime Minister comes off looking like a pushover.

This impression is compounded by the even more gratuitous remarks Trump made alluding at the leverage he can exercise on India’s politics, including Modi’s status. “I don’t want to destroy his political career,” he said. “I’ve watched India for years. It’s an incredible country, and every single year you’d have a new leader. My friend (Modi) has been there now for a long time.” Such remarks imply a relationship of coercive bullying between the US President and the Indian Prime Minister.

This demanded a firm response, perhaps by the PM himself. Instead, the Ministry of External Affairs put out an ambiguous reaction that did not deny that India is cutting back on Russian oil imports, nor push back at the bullying. Instead, it seemed to accommodate American pressure by saying India was “broad-basing” and “diversifying” its sources of energy according to market needs.

For a government that says self-interest is the overriding principle of its foreign policy, it is surprising that New Delhi does not speak with a clearer voice on the international stage. When India’s stakes are high, such as in energy security, it falls to the Prime Minister to assert our position unequivocally. Muted responses might have passed for sophisticated diplomacy in conventional times, but in a Trumpian world, they diminish India’s strength. When assertion is called for, oblique responses come off like evasion.